gayme on —

reddit’s gay gamers knock out “gaymer” trademark

The former mark owner shut down gaymer.org, which had become a "source of pain."

Seven months ago, a group of gamers that congregates at the /r/gaymers section of reddit teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Perkins Coie law firm to cancel a trademark they objected to. The brouhaha began when Chris Vizzini, who held the trademark on "gaymers" and owns the gaymer.org Web domain, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the /r/gaymers subreddit. Vizzini believed they were stealing away clicks that were rightfully his.

Now, they've won that legal fight. Vizzini "surrendered" the trademark in July, and the US Patent and Trademark office officially canceled the trademark yesterday.

Back in January, Vizzini had asked for help with legal fees to maintain his fight for the Gaymer trademark, noting that his opponents "have free legal representation from two sources and I do not."

Vizzini has also shut down gaymer.org, leaving only a farewell message. It reads in part:

I'm just a regular person with a normal job and make a modest salary. Basically, I’m up against a huge law firm with unlimited resources plus the EFF was in on it... Filing a motion to dismiss a motion is way more expensive than it sounds and I have the bill to prove it. Plus, it didn’t work. The trademark board denied my motion.

I'm letting go. I'd just be outspent if I pushed the case forward... What was once a source of passion has now become a source of pain and it’s time to walk away and say goodbye.

"Trademark is supposed to protect consumers from confusion, not to shut down discussion spaces and the names they have rallied around," said Zack Karlsson, the member who represented /r/gaymers at the USPTO. "We were shocked that anyone would try to assert ownership rights in 'gaymer' and felt the term belonged to the public, not Mr. Vizzini."

After publication, Vizzini sent a statement via email in which he acknowledged "some pretty major missteps." The statement reads, in part:

I should have just contacted the admins of reddit and talked to them directly instead of issuing the C&D [cease and desist letter]. To be honest, I didn’t have legal representation at that point and didn’t know what I was doing. I thought sending a C&D was what you were supposed to do, so I headed over to Legal Zoom and downloaded the form then filled in the blanks. It wasn’t until afterward when it made waves that I got my lawyer involved. I didn’t understand the emotional ramifications for people in sending a C&D. It’s taken as an act of aggression. Which is ironic because if you ask anyone who knows me, they would say I’m the least aggressive person they know. I have no idea why that didn’t occur to me at the time, but it didn’t. As is the case with many things in life, hindsight is crystal clear.

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